When the FIFA World Cup kicks off in North Texas on June 11, thousands of volunteers will be working to ensure it all goes well.
Cecilia Nipp, Angel Chinuntdet, and Phoebe Butler will be three of them as host city ambassadors stationed at the FIFA Fan Festival at Fair Park throughout the matches. All three of them are educators at Ursuline Academy in Dallas.
“The whole point is to make the visitors feel welcome to the city and to our area. I’m just so excited that I was picked to be part of it. And I get to do it all with some of these great ladies that I work with,” Chinuntdet said.
Butler agrees, and as she put it, she’s excited about the ‘hype’.
“I just get more hyped being around hyped people,” Butler said.
The three said the in-person interview was fun, but also a little nerve-racking. They considered it an elevator pitch of sorts, proving to local World Cup organizers they were perfect for the job.
“They asked me a lot about myself. It was like a job interview. It was funny, at one point, they even asked me what I would say to someone at the Fan Fest if they asked me where to go eat or what the fun things were to do around town. I, of course, told them about some good barbecue spots. I’m also a huge Argentina fan, so I had to tell them about that, seeing as though they are also coming here [for group stage play],” Butler said.
While Chinuntdet and Butler are getting the opportunity for the first time, this isn’t Nipp’s first rodeo. She was a volunteer at the 1994 World Cup when it was at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
“When I found out I had been selected again, I wanted to run up and down the hallways,” Nipp said. “I was just trying not to scream. But yes, I was just so happy.”
She said it’s not just exciting for her, but also for the students at Ursuline, because many of them have a close relationship with the country of Jordan.
“Here at Ursuline, we have a sister school in Jordan. Jordan is coming [in group play], so that’s exciting because we have friends in that country, and so we’re happy for them,” Nipp said.
In addition to the FIFA Fan Festival, other volunteer roles include: Host City Ambassador, Media Operations, Fan Operations, Hospitality, Competition Management, Access Management, Ceremonies, and airport duties.
33,000 people applied before registration closed in September 2025. Then, nearly 12,000 showed up for the tryouts (in-person interviews). From those, a little more than 5,000 official volunteers were sent official offers. The Dallas market has the second-largest number of volunteers of the 16 host cities, only behind New York/New Jersey.
The majority of the volunteers are local, like Nipp, Chinuntdet, and Butler, but according to local World Cup leaders in Dallas, there were some volunteers who were chosen from across the nation and the world.
“We held 91 in-person, role-specific trainings in March with all volunteers,” Dallas FIFA World Cup 2026 Director of Communications Joe Trahan said. “Each person had to attend at least one of those sessions. Each volunteer also went through e-learning training session modules that included subjects about human rights, sustainability, safety, security and how to manage stressful situations.”
Each volunteer has also had the opportunity to attend venue-specific trainings for their assigned roles.
“Each volunteer is required to work a minimum of eight shifts. Generally, the length of shifts is between four and six hours each,” Trahan said.
Dallas Stadium in Arlington will host nine matches featuring the Netherlands, Japan, England, Croatia, Argentina, Austria, and Jordan in group stage play.Dallas Stadium will also host a semi-final match.
